The Brick House

My best friend just recently moved about an hour away from me and is building a new home that will be closer to her husband's company.  As sad as I am to not have her right around the corner from me, it has been exciting to help her pick the different elements that come along with building a custom home.   One of the most recent decisions she had to make was picking the brick for the exterior.  Man, I never realized there were so many choices of brick.  After driving through neighborhoods and looking at inspiration pictures she realized she liked a lighter, chalky brick.

I was also a fan of it and thought it was a great choice for her home.  She selected a tumbled brick that offered a more old world European charm and sent it off to her builder as her choice.  Well, a few days later she got the quote and it was going to be thousands over her budget for that type of brick.  So, back to the drawing board she went.  After speaking to the contractor who was working on her house they came up with using a standard tumbled red brick but added a messy mortar finish.  This is what it looks like so far:

I think it looks fantastic!  This was a great solution for her budget and it really has given her the look she was after.  There are different techniques such as whitewash, limewash and sacking treatment just to name a few that can give you the look of the chalky brick without paying the big bucks of having it manufactured.

 What do you think of these treatments and have you ever used them before?

Blessings,

Tammy

All house images were via Houzz.  Brick picture is via Jennifer Moore.